Bascom never told what Narcisse had done to him under water, and the gun that had had a share in it was used to keeping its own counsel. It and its comrades were left in his care, and when he saw that they would be awkward ballast on the _Mystery_, they were piled together on Tony's beach to wait a purchaser. The faith which Bascom had had in them staid with him, although public interest in them died out, and they were forgotten again. But Bascom was always working with them, and polishing them, and talking to them when he had the time. "It's queer how you all staid there so quiet, and waited hundreds an' hundreds an' hundreds of years--just for me," he said to them. "I wisht I could only find out where you come from, and what you're calculatin' for me to do. You didn't come for nothin', I make sure of that." But the guns with all their sleeping possibilities of voice lay still. MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE. BY AGNES LITTLETON. Part III. [Illustration: Decorative T] he next morning at ten o'clock two frightened and trembling maidens presented themselves at the door of Miss Briggs's house on Madison Avenue. It was all out of order, to be sure, for them to be calling at such an hour, for it was the time appointed for their lessons, and yesterday had been a holiday also on account of the fair; but Miss Briggs's word was to a certain extent law in the family, and governesses and masters were asked to defer their coming. The mothers of Millicent and Peggy had little idea as to why their cousin wished to see them, for neither girl dared to confess her atrocious deed. In fact, Millicent herself did not know of Peggy's poem. Peggy was putting off the evil moment as long as possible, when she should be forced to give an account of what she had done. She was really very much ashamed of herself. She had lain awake half the night thinking of what a rude, unladylike, childish trick she had been guilty. "From first to last it has been silly," she groaned. "It was perfectly hateful of me to make Milly send her poetry and turn her into a laughing-stock, even though no one knows it was she who wrote them, and it was ridiculous for me to put that one in about Cousin Appolina. And it isn't very funny, either. I might have made a better one while I was about it. Oh dear! oh dear! I wish I hadn't been born a joker! I'll never get to England now, not for years and years, for papa declares he won't take me himself until I have finished school. And when he hears about this, for, of course, Cousin Appolina will tell the whole family, what _will_ he say! Oh, oh! Unfortunate wretch that I am!" Thus Peggy. Millicent, in the mean time, across the street, was in a no less unhappy frame of mind.